A LETTER TO THIS EDITOR,

28 SEPTEMBER 2021

The announcement last week that the South Carolina Supreme Court would hold a hearing on the church case has spurred a flurry of renewed interest in the ongoing legal war of the schism. After nearly nine years since the break, the two sides are nearing the finish line. The ownership of the 29 parishes and the Camp will be decided by the SCSC in the foreseeable future. 

With the Battle of Waterloo on the horizon, I encourage everyone to share your thoughts about any and all aspects of the schism with me and our blog readers. Letters to this editor are always very popular (I think people get a little tired of reading only what I have to say). I am a democrat. Everyone has the same rights and everyone is equally important. Your opinions are just as valuable as mine. So, go on and share your views with us. We need it. All I ask is that you talk about issues and not make personal attacks. If published, you may include your name or leave it anonymous.

Letter of the day:

Hi Ronald:

I read your September 26 analysis of Collective vs Non-Collective Opinion, or Opinion vs Collective Opinion. As I am no attorney, but have experience in property and property held in trust, deeds and transfer of deeds.

First, a trust created for property holds the real property to protect that asset. Protecting for the benefit of those the trust is holding it for. In this case, 'Church Properties'. The Dennis Canon created for this very protection.

Second, a majority opinion is the final opinion on a case, by that court, as in state supreme courts, with defined results. A court, even US Supreme Court, may have some in majority that vote in the majority, but write an opinion as caution, or write more closely to the letter of the law. Write on not just legal reasoning of their decision but how their legal mind finds a conclusion in the evidence presented. Happens all the time.

Evidence presented, both sides try to persuade with arguments, their position before judges or justices. Therefore, "I conclude this way, here is my opinion from the facts presented, here is my reasoning, and some precedent."

However, the majority decision is final, for that case. State Supreme Courts do reverse cases from previous courts---even landmark rulings by SCOTUS. However, rarely reverse their own ruling just a few years ago. This is because a reverse decision soon becomes a question about the quasi legitimacy of that court. In this, for standing by its own previous rulings. Then upheld other future decisions on any case going forward as legitimate and respected for future plaintiffs and defendants.

In South Carolina the SCSC may reverse its own decision based on to clarify opinions written by the very same judges. That's odd, these are odd judges if they do this after the December 8 hearing. This places an issue of legitimacy on SCSC ruling, binding rules, adhering to law.

We are heading into a state supreme court that is going to reverse itself on December 8. It will also then ignore the principle of stare decisis [to stand by things decided]. Only when the court uses the theory of collective opinions, presented before the lower court to Judge Dickson. A new theory in this case. Now, isn't that special?

One may interpret a trust that holds property different than others since it may benefit one over others. And others will interpret a trust that hold property that benefits them more, or even less than others.

In properties sold there are title searches done by attorneys. The attorney is neutral on the chain of ownership. And conducts a comprehensive legal review. Standard on most all real estate transaction. In this there are (3) ways to determine ownership of any property held in trust, or held in a complex manner that non-attorneys don't understand. 

First, there are documents, the original deeds, language of a trust created to the benefit and protection of those to enjoy the asset. Second, a title search completed by a neutral real estate attorney that traces chain of ownership. Third, there are legal hearings by a judge as a legal ruling on ownership. Not a trial per se. Not dragged out into the public, confuse everyone, and delay a final understanding to settle the dispute.

The point is this is a real estate case, it always was a real estate case. This is a land grab, a tradition in America going back centuries. Here, stealing $500 million in Church properties. It's not a religious expression case, not a free exercise case, not a right to assemble peacefully, not about speech, or press. It's not a first amendment case at all. It's more like a 14th Amendment and even a 5th Amendment  case to drop some new theories.

This is supposed to be about gay marriage and female clergy from the start, going back and escalating decades ago. Perhaps this is a label stamped on it here. And is totally moot. This is for the newspapers, and for non-Episcopalians to comment about and stamp a political label on it. Stamp it! It's all about politics today, and culture---but it is not. South Carolina's largest newspaper can't even keep up, knows facts loosely and gives up reporting on it. December 8 hearing will hear arguments, but we will once again likely go into a winter 2022 waiting for a decision.

Finally, Episcopalians are good at one central area in the United States. We know land. We hold land and other assets as an estimate in USA exceeding $300 billion. And with less than 2 million active parishioners. This is not to benefit us. It's to benefit everyone that walks into our doors. Also, the churches hold endowments attached to the parishes that may exceed the actual land value of the church property. It's really about money, who gets to control that pot of money with a nice property for worship.

The great robbery of South Carolina likely will end soon. We sigh a relief, go back to worship and doing kindness for others as a central aspect of Episcopalian faith life, and maybe enjoy the end of Advent with a resolution.

Christopher Rogers, MPA---Adjunct Faculty, Trident Technical College, Charleston, South Carolina.

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To Christopher Rogers, I say a big "Thank You" for this thoughtful letter. 

Now reader, let us know what your think.

 

OPINION

v.

COLLECTIVE OPINION

Was the South Carolina Supreme Court publication of August 2, 2017, an Opinion, or a Collective Opinion (aka Collective Opinions)? At first glance, one may ask, What's the difference? Are not these terms the same? Anyway, what would it matter? On closer examination, we will see that the difference between these terms is the issue in a nutshell. They are in fact diametrically opposed; and the justices of the SCSC will have to decide which is correct.

In brief, the Episcopal Church side holds that the paper from the SCSC dated 2 August 2017 is the majority opinion of the court settling the questions of which side owns the 36 parishes in question and Camp St. Christopher. They call it "the Opinion."

The secessionist side (aka Anglican Diocese of South Carolina) contends it is five separate opinions, therefore they prefer to call the paper "the Collective Opinion." The implication of this was there was no clear ruling on the issues of the parishes and the Camp; and therefore, the circuit court had to "interpret" the overall intention of the justices on these issues. In a press release of 23 September, the ADSC spokesperson wrote:  "Judge Goodstein's ruling was appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court, which ruled on August 2, 2017 in the form of five separate opinions. The lack of agreement among those five opinions required clarification."

To put it simply: Did the SCSC give a majority ruling in 2017 to settle who owned the parishes and the Camp? Church said "Yes"; breakaways said "No." And, they chose as their terms for the 2017 paper "Opinion" and "Collective Opinion." Both of them cannot be right. One has to be correct and the other incorrect. This is what the justices of the SCSC have to decide now.

Let us start with the paper of Aug. 2, 2017 itself. On the title page we find this:

"Appellate Case No. 2015-000622/Appeal from Dorchester County, Diane Schafer Goodstein, Circuit Court Judge/Opinion No. 27731/Heard September 23, 2015---Filed August 2, 2017."

Thus, the paper calls itself "Opinion." Opinion is a singular word. I have searched the 77 pages of this Opinion and cannot find anywhere the term "Collective Opinion." The designation "Collective Opinion" was adopted by the breakaway side and taken up by Judge Edgar Dickson who used it often in his June 19, 2020 Order. It is not original to the document of 2017.

It is the meaning of the term "Collective Opinion" that is important here. It means that there is no clear majority ruling in the 2017 Opinion, only a collection of different views. Is this true? 

The Aug. 2, 2017 Opinion states clearly the decisions of the South Carolina Supreme Court. The majority opinion was written by Justice Pleicones. Chief Justice Toal, who was in charge of the case, enumerated the three majority decisions of the court very clearly in the last page of her summary even though she dissented from the majority: 1-The 8 parish organizations that had not acceded to the Dennis Canon were owners of their properties; 2-The 28 parishes that acceded to the Dennis Canon were property of the Episcopal Church; and 3-The Camp was property of the Episcopal trustees. One may find the Aug. 2, 2017 decision here .

On Nov. 17, 2017, the SCSC denied a rehearing of the case and issued a Remittitur to the Circuit Court. A Remittitur is a directive to implement a decision. If the court had meant a reconsideration of the issues, it would have issued a Remand.

The secessionist side asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, (it later refused). Then, it asked the circuit court judge, Edgar Dickson, for an interpretation of the SCSC decision. After reams of papers and numerous hearings, Dickson issued an Order on June 19, 2020, that the parishes were owners of the local properties and the Anglican trustees were owners of the Camp. On these essential issues, Dickson directly contradicted the majority opinions of the state high court.

Dickson did so because he saw the 2017 paper as "the Collective Opinion." He leaned to the secessionist position that the five separate opinions in the paper presented no clear majority decision. He claimed that he had the right to interpret the "intent" of the justices as shown in the entire paper.

In fact, four of the SCSC justices ruled that 28 parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon. Only Toal disagreed. One of the four, Kittredge, went on to say that the parishes had the right to revoke their accessions, and they did at the "disassociation." This left three of the five justices to declare that the 28 parishes belonged to the Episcopal Church as per the Dennis Canon. 

Judge Dickson ruled in his Order that no parish had acceded to the Dennis Canon. He said he reviewed the same Record on Appeal that the SCSC justices had used to make their ruling. The SCSC justices had found compelling evidence of accession. Dickson found none. On this basis, he ordered that the parishes remained owners of the local properties and the Anglican trustees owned the Camp.

Dickson's decision seemed to revolve around the part of the 2017 opinion written by Justice (now Chief Justice) Beatty. Beatty said "the Dennis Canon had no effect until acceded to in writing by the individual parishes." Dickson agreed and gave a strict interpretation to this. However, Beatty himself went on to say the 28 parishes in question did in fact create trusts:  "I agree with the majority as to the disposition of the remaining [28] parishes because their express accession to the Dennis Canon was sufficient to create an irrevocable trust." So what this boiled down to was that Dickson apparently disagreed with the conclusion of Beatty. Dickson said no parish acceded to the Dennis Canon. Beatty said the 28 parishes had made express accessions to the Canon. Toal confirmed Beatty's opinion in her summary of the three decision on the last page. Dickson said Beatty did not list the parishes that had acceded. In fact, Toal provided Beatty's list in the three majority decisions. 

It seemed to me that Dickson misinterpreted Beatty's decision to make it appear that Beatty intended to hold that the parishes had to create express trusts explicitly in writing for the Dennis Canon to go into effect. So, Dickson interpreted the "intent" of the court to be that each parish had to create an express trusts in writing for the Dennis Canon to be effective, and they had not done that. Never mind that the majority of the SCSC justices had ruled that the 28 parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon. There was a difference of opinion on what express trust meant.

In his Order, Dickson wrote a conclusion on pages 44-46 laying out his decision on the properties. Actually, he essentially returned to Goodstein's 2015 Order. Nowhere in his conclusion, did Dickson mention the South Carolina Supreme Court. Apparently, it was as irrelevant at the end as it had been all along.

Opinion or Collective Opinion(s)? There is absolutely no doubt to a reasonable person that the SCSC issued three majority decisions on Aug. 2, 2017. The SCSC Opinion says what it says, and means what it says. The fact that each of the five justices wrote his or her own opinion does not matter. Multiple opinions appear frequently in supreme courts, even with unanimous decisions (as the recent face mask decision). 

However, separate does not necessarily mean conflicting. There were not five opposing opinions on the three major points at stake. In fact, there were three majority (3-2) decisions and these were sent to the circuit court for implementation. No amount of misinterpretation and friendly judges can obscure the blazing facts of the SCSC Opinion.

So, this is the fundamental issue at stake before the South Carolina Supreme Court now: Opinion or Collective Opinion(s)?

 

BISHOP'S ELECTION, 

UPPER SOUTH CAROLINA,

25 SEPTEMBER 2021:

    DANIEL RICHARDS CHOSEN !

8:30 a.m. EDT

Good morning reader. It is a glorious day in more ways than one.

The convention of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina will make its choice today for the IX bishop of the diocese, to succeed the present beloved bishop, Andrew Waldo. It is not quite accurate to say the convention will elect the next bishop because the choice has to be submitted to the bishops and standing committees of the whole Episcopal Church for majority approval before he can be the next  bishop. So, the correct term for the person chosen today is "bishop elect." 

See today's agenda here . The meeting will begin at 10:00 a.m., EDT. It will be livestreamed from Trinity Cathedral, Columbia.

There are five nominees for bishop:

1---Furman Buchanan; St. Peter's, Greenville SC

2---Seth Donald; St. Michael and All Angels, Lake Charles LA

3---Lonnie Lacy; St. Anne's, Tifton GA

4---Daniel Richards; Ascension, Paradise Valley AZ

5---Jemonde Taylor; St. Ambrose, Raleigh NC

Buchanan is the only nominee presently in the diocese of USC. Taylor is the only nominee "of color." There is no female nominee.

I will return at 10:00 a.m. with running commentary.

10:10. My livestream is not live.

10:30. Still no livestream. Perhaps someone from diocese could comment in Facebook chat room.

10:40. Diocese informs us there is no clergy quorum. Meeting delayed. Livestream will not start until meeting starts. The failure of the clergy to take this election seriously is an embarrassment.

10:48. Livestream begins on diocesan website.

11:00. Still waiting. Livestream was on momentarily, now off again. Wondering what will happen if no quorum of clergy is reached.

11:15. One hour and fifteen minutes. Still waiting. 

11:30. Diocese reports lack of quorum of clergy. 2/3 of active and retired clergy must be present. At the moment, the number below quorum is 10. Diocese says it is working on making quorum.

12:00 p.m. Still waiting on meeting to start. Two hours. No report from diocese on status of quorum. Wondering now how much longer before a postponement is called.

12:30. Crickets. 

1:00. A report says the First Ballot is being counted. No livestream.

1:07. One report says no election on First Ballot.

FIRST BALLOT:

                      Lay         Clergy

Buchanan     33            39

Donald            7              5

Lacy              42            16

Richards       55            17

Taylor            39            17

SECOND BALLOT

Buchanan      38           44

Lacy               31           15

Richards        70           23

Taylor             36           11

The race appears to be between Buchanan and Richards. The clergy and laity are split, more clergy for B and more laity for R. Lacy and Taylor appear to be fading.

Needed for election:  Laity---89; Clergy---55.

THIRD BALLOT

Buchanan      44           45

Lacy               18             6

Richards        87           37

Taylor            21             5

Most movement towards Richards. He needs 2 more in Lay order and 18 more in Clergy order to secure the election. Lacy and Taylor withdrew.

Interesting to note Buchanan remains first choice among clergy while Richards remains leading among laity.  

FOURTH BALLOT

Buchanan     47          42

Richards      124         50

Richards has carried the Lay Order. He needs 5 more votes to secure the Clergy Order and the election.

BUCHANAN WITHDRAWS.

RICHARDS WINS. (A Fifth Ballot will be necessary as a formality.)

DANIEL RICHARDS CHOSEN AS NEXT BISHOP-ELECT OF THE DIOCESE OF UPPER SOUTH CAROLINA!

 

NOTES,  20 SEPTEMBER 2021

Welcome, blog reader, on Monday, September 20, 2021. Let us check in on the stories and topics we have been covering of late.

PANDEMIC. We are in the third great surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the charts indicate that we may have reached a plateau or even hit the down slope on this surge. Find the latest for South Carolina here . For info on Alabama, look here . Vaccinations are rising, however slowly, Alabama now over 40%. It is too soon to tell whether this surge is in fact declining. Meanwhile, let us pause and remember that 4,700,000 people in the world have died in this plague, including 690,000 Americans. We all wish and pray fervently for this to end, but must endure whatever happens.

BISHOP'S ELECTION IN UPPER SOUTH CAROLINA. On Saturday of this week, September 25, 2021, the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina will elect the IX bishop of the diocese, to follow the beloved Andrew Waldo. We have had the Walkabouts. 

There are five candidates, four white men and one black man (I do not know why a woman did not make the cut). One of the candidates is resident in the diocese, the other four are employed outside the diocese. From what I saw in the Walkabouts, the diocese would be fortunate to have any one of them. They were all outstanding.

The election convention will begin at 10:00 a.m., at Trinity Cathedral, in Columbia. It will be livestreamed. I plan to watch and to make a report afterwards.

ORDINATION/CONSECRATION OF RUTH WOODLIFF-STANLEY AS XV BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. This will occur on Saturday, October 2, 2021, at Grace Church Cathedral, in Charleston. It will be livestreamed. The presiding bishop will be the Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, greatly beloved in the diocese. With all the attending bishops, diocesan clergy, and delegates to the convention, there will not be much room left in Grace. I plan to watch from home although I would dearly love to be there in person. This is one of those landmark historic events that should not be missed. I will post a report afterwards.

ELECTION OF BISHOP COADJUTOR OF THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. We have had the Walkabouts. I made posts after each of the four sessions. The election convention will be on Saturday, October 16, at 10:00 a.m., at Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant.

There are three candidates, all white, straight men. My best guess is that Chip Edgar has the edge. It seems to me he is the choice of the ruling establishment of the diocese through the search committee which put up only two rival choices, neither of which had been a powerful force in the schism. And, the most logical reason for this, I think, is a desire to unite the diocese with an overlapping diocese in the Anglican Church in North America, the Diocese of the Carolinas, led by Steve Wood. I would  not be surprised to see a union of these two dioceses once the dust settles after the litigation (who knows when that will be?).

Anyway, I assume the election convention will be livestreamed. I will make a report as I can.

SCSC. Still no word from the South Carolina Supreme Court concerning the Episcopal Church's appeal of Judge Edgar Dickson's order. The appeal was filed over a year ago. All of the paper work was finished last May. Since then, crickets. I think it is safe to assume there will be no hearing on this appeal. If the justices wanted a hearing, I expect we would have heard of it by now. I wonder if the justices have made a decision and are working on explanations. Whatever, we have no choice but to bide our time. I am sorry to remind everyone the wait was almost two years last time in the SCSC.

GAFCON AND WOMEN BISHOPS. On 15 September, I posted a piece on this blog asking if a civil war were brewing in GAFCON over the issue of women in the episcopate. 

Apparently, the answer we can give now is "No." The GAFCON primates caved on the question. On September 16, 2021, they issued a statement addressing the problem of the ordination of women and women as bishops. They declared these were "not salvation issues" and so would be left up to the individual provinces. Find the statement here . 

This reverses the position the primates took in June of 2018 when they adopted a report on women in the episcopate that called for a moratorium on the consecrations of women as bishops. The primates agreed then only men could be bishops in GAFCON until and unless there is "a strong consensus" for change.

The primate/archbishop of Kenya ignored this "moratorium" and consecrated two women bishops in the year 2021, the second one earlier this month. Given the de facto end of the ban, the primates met this month and gave in. The issue is dead in GAFCON. 

Why did they give in? Women in the episcopate was never the heart of the GAFCON movement. Homosexuality was. When the Jerusalem Declaration was drawn up in 2008, the start of GAFCON, only one social issue was spelled out, homosexuality. The JD condemned it and its corollary same-sex marriage. There was nothing in the JD about the ordination of women.

Thus, the primates of GAFCON were not willing to die on the hill of women bishops. Although they take a dim view of women's ordination (and the role of women in society) in general, they are not willing to risk the unity of GAFCON for that issue when their primary goal is to stop rights for and inclusion of non-celibate homosexuals in Anglican churches.

Interesting that the primates said the matter of women bishops was not a "salvation issue" and therefore could be put aside. If this is not a salvation issue, homosexuality is not either. Jesus Christ said not a word about it.

At the same time the primates gave in on the issue of women bishops, Foley Beach, head of the ACNA, rushed to declare there would be no women bishops in the ACNA. Find his statement here .

I expect that as time goes by and homosexuality becomes more and more socially accepted, this will become a divisive problem in GAFCON and particularly in its member parts, as the Anglican Church in North America. Indeed, the recent diocesan profile published by the Anglican Diocese of SC showed a gap between clergy and laity on both issues of women clergy and homosexuality. The people-in-the-pews do not have the same opposition to women clergy and homosexuality as do their clergy in the breakaway churches of South Carolina.

Sometimes I wonder if the world has turned upside down and everything has gone wacky. Now we have this silliness. The artist Christo thought it would be "art" to drape the Arc de Triomphe in fabric. Gasp. 

This is not art. It is desecration and I will be glad when this mess is removed in a few days. Ever since Notre Dame de Paris caught fire on April 15, 2019, I have been on edge about the safety of the world's monumental treasures. There are certain things that are so nearly perfect, they should be off limits to human tampering: e.g. the Bible, Shakespeare, Haiga Sophia, the medieval cathedrals, Mona Lisa, Sistine Chapel ceiling (some art critics said the recent "restoration" left it looking like newspaper cartoons), the movie "The Wizard of Oz," Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal, and the Arc de Triomphe. I am sure you can think of others. 

The magnificent Arc is a place I know well and treasure. It is the greatest war memorial ever constructed. It started as a vision of Napoleon who wanted to rebuild the Roman empire. It is as grandiose as the man.

Speaking of irreplaceable treasures, a relentless wildfire is within a mile of the largest tree on earth, "General Sherman." Rangers have wrapped its gigantic base, and its neighbors', in foil. The General, at least 2,200 years old, has survived many fires, but if this wildfire gets dangerous enough, the unthinkable could happen. Wildfires of the last decade have destroyed more than half the sequoias. They grow naturally in only one place on earth, the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in California. On the Third Day, God created the plants. Finally, God created humans and gave them dominion over all living things. This gardener says it is time men and women exercise that dominion and save the greatest and grandest gifts of God now growing on earth. Everything humanly possible should be done to save the great redwoods of California.

And so, we are besieged with man-made and natural disasters and challenges. Again, these things were given to us in the time allotted for our lives. We wish they would go away but they do not. What matters now is how we react to them. Whatever happens, God is with us and we are with each other. Peace.

REFLECTIONS FOLLOWING THE ADSC WALKABOUTS

The fourth, and last, of the Walkabouts of the candidates for office of bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, occurred today, 16 September 2021. I made it through all four. I am glad now I persevered through them all because I have a better understanding of the nature of the schism in South Carolina. With that, I say a thank you to the officials of the ADSC who provided us with the livestream of these sessions.

Today's session was essentially the same as the first three. Most of the time the three candidates told us about their personal relationship with God, for the fourth time. I think we have got it by now. It was all vertical, all the time. And, once again, the questions were mostly general and non-challenging. 

However, there were two questions that got to serious issues. One asked for the candidate's position on the ordination of women (they meant to the diaconate and priesthood). The ADSC, and its parent, the ACNA, do not allow women to be bishops. All three rushed to say they were in favor. What else could they say since the Anglican diocese allows women as deacons and priests? At the same time, all three rushed to say they understood and respected the opposition to women's ordination. Interesting that they had no problem accepting diametrically opposed positions on women's ordination but could not do so on the issue of homosexuality.

At the time of the schism in 2012, most of the women clergy stayed with the Episcopal Church, for good reason. Since then, in the Anglican diocese women have been treated as second-class citizens. As I recall, Mark Lawrence has ordained two women to the priesthood in his thirteen years as a bishop. The ADSC is a white patriarchy as it has been all along. Women are taught to be submissive.  

The subject of homosexuality came up only one brief time when Edgar said he would not preside over a same-sex marriage. The ADSC has an absolute ban on such anyway.

The other worthwhile question asked for their views on racial and social justice and examples of their work on these in the last eighteen months. Finally, a question directly confronted the candidates about their experience with horizontal religion. What have you done specifically to make the world around us a better place? Here they all collapsed. Not one could give a specific example of what he had done for social justice. Outside a few vague references, they mostly talked about their personal relationships with people of color. This wrapped up the Walkabouts appropriately. It spoke volumes.  

The Walkabouts are over. So, what are our take-aways from these four sessions? Here is what I see looking back over the last four days. I  must hasten to remind everyone, these are just my opinions. I could be wrong. I often am. Anyway, here are my thoughts of the day for what they are worth:

There was very little public interest in these walkabouts. In comparison, the recent Walkabouts in the dioceses of South Carolina and Upper South Carolina drew several times as many viewers to the livestreams. Here is my theory to explain the lack of interest. The ADSC is an authoritarian body, always has been. The schism of 2012 was an act from the top down. It was carried out by no more than two dozen people. It was presented as a fait accompli first to the people and then to the diocesan convention on Nov. 17, 2012. The diocese has been governed the same way ever since. This authoritarianism was magnified when the ADSC joined the Anglican Church in North America, a denomination controlled by its bishops. Lay people are virtually powerless in ADSC and ACNA. So, lay people in ADSC are conditioned to accept decisions made for them. They routinely unanimously approve without question whatever is put before them. If they know they have no power in the decision making, they know there is no point in wasting their time looking at long, boring presentations.

As for the choice of the next bishop of ADSC, I see several important indicators. In the first place, only three candidates were put forth by the search committee. Two of them were clergy in the ADSC. One of them was from outside the diocese. He was the dean of the cathedral church of the Diocese of the Carolinas. The DoC happens to be the overlapping diocese in the ACNA. Its bishop is Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew's, in Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston.

The two internal candidates were secondary figures in the schism. They were in the diocese at the time of the break but were not parts of the diocesan ruling power structure. (Do not get me wrong. I am not making a judgment on their qualifications to be bishop. They are fine people.) There were several men in the established diocesan power structure who easily could have been put forth as candidates. In fact, I had expected Jeff Miller to be the shoo-in. Given his background, he was the logical choice to assume the chair vacated by Mark Lawrence. The fact that no one of the historic stature of Miller was made a candidate tells us the diocesan power structure decided to move the diocese along a different path. If they were going to continue the structure of the Lawrence regime, they would have picked someone as Miller.

If they are going to move the diocese along a different track, what is it? I suspect it is to merge the ADSC into Wood's Diocese of the Carolinas. The one candidate from the outside is the dean of Wood's cathedral and obviously close to Wood. Edgar would not be the dean without Wood's approval. And so, I expect Edgar is the favored candidate of the ADSC ruling establishment. Given the authoritarian nature of the ADSC, I expect Edgar to be elected and enthroned.

But then one might ask, Why would the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina want to merge with another diocese? Again, I am just speculating on all of this. The South Carolina Supreme Court some day will rule on the local properties. If the ADSC winds up holding the parishes in question, it could possibly continue on as a diocese but it would be very difficult. It is highly unlikely that it will get the legal entity of the pre-schism diocese back. Judge Gergel's order in favor of the Episcopal diocese is on appeal but it is most unlikely the appeals court will overturn it. Gergel's order is virtually appeal-proof. With the central diocesan structure lost, the ADSC would need support from the outside. Union with Wood's bunch would make sense. Even more sensible would be if ADSC loses in SCSC and winds up with just the six parishes that have already been awarded to it. With no central diocesan structure and only a handful of local churches, merger with the Diocese of the Carolinas would be logical. So, it seems to me that merger with Wood's diocese is the path that the ADSC leadership has probably chosen and I see it as perfectly sensible. Hence, Edgar is the candidate to beat.

I would not be surprised that, if Edgar gets elected, the two dioceses would soon merge and Edgar would become the bishop suffragan under Bishop Steve Wood. If this were not the wish of the ADSC power structure, I think we would see a different slate of candidates today.

Now, let us turn to the issue of what the Walkabouts tell us about the state of the schism. Here is what I see. Again, these are only my opinions:

---The split came from a division of vertical and horizontal religion. The ADSC is thoroughly vertical.

---The vertical attitude of ADSC has hardened since the break. The prevailing attitude in ADSC is that of the Pharisees. We are right and God is on our side; anyone who disagrees is wrong and not on God's side.

---The schismatics cannot leave alone the Episcopal Church. As a survivor of a bitter divorce, they cannot stop blaming the other party for what went wrong.

---The chance of reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and the breakaways is more remote than ever.

---If the Episcopal Church regains the 29 parishes in question, it will be hard-pressed to rebuild the parishes. After so many years of hardening anti-Episcopal attitude among the breakaways, parishioners who remain in the returning parishes will not likely be happy campers.

---The Episcopal Church has lost a great many communicants of the pre-schism days. A large share of these, probably the majority, will not return to the Episcopal Church. The Church should plan accordingly.

Soon, both the Episcopal and Anglican dioceses of South Carolina will have new bishops. A new age will begin for both. Here is a good opportunity to make a change for the better. As Christians first, they should find new ways to love one another.

The schism in South Carolina is a grievous scandal because it is a rupture in the body of Christ. If the two sides cannot find ways to end this scandal, they should find ways to accept and respect each other. The schism should not have happened, but it did happen. That does not mean, however, that it has to go on happening. Nearly nine years of hurt, strife, and destruction is anathema to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I suggest as a starting place for the two sides to attend each other's consecrations of bishops. The Episcopal diocese should invite the three candidates for bishop of the Anglican diocese to attend Ruth Woodliff-Stanley's ordination/consecration as the new bishop of the EDSC on 2 October. In return, the Anglican diocese should invite Woodliff-Stanley to the ordination/consecration of their next bishop. I know at first it sounds ridiculous, but it is not. Stop and think about it. We have to start somewhere. Even if the recipients do not accept the invitations, the invitations themselves would be a step in the right direction. 

God knows the good people of South Carolina have learned the hard way it is not easy being a Christian these days. It is definitely not easy being an Episcopalian or Anglican these days. Yet, here we are and here we must persevere in what we believe God would have us do. And, what we must do is to keep the two great commandments: love God and love one another. If we do not do that we have no right to the name we bear.

One of my favorite hymns was a favorite of my college chaplain from the 1960's, Lex Matthews. He and the chaplain from near-by Florida A & M integrated every public place for fifty miles around Tallahassee in the most dangerous time of the civil rights movement. They risked their lives every day. He knew how hard it was to be a Christian but it never occurred to him to do anything else:

"They Cast Their Nets in Galilee"

1. They cast their nets in Galilee

     Just off the hills of brown;

     Such happy, simple fisher-folk,

     Before the Lord came down.

2. Contented, peaceful fishermen,

     Before they ever knew

     The peace of God that filled their hearts

     Brimful, and broke them too.

3. Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,

     Homeless, in Patmos died.

     Peter, who hauled the teeming net,

     Head down was crucified. 

4. The peace of God, it is no peace,

     But strife closed in the sod.

     Yet, brothers, pray for just one thing-

     The marvelous peace of God.

 

ADSC WALKABOUT #3

OK, Walkabout #3, today, 15 September 2021, at St. Philip's, of Charleston has ended. I sat through the whole thing! That makes three in a row for me. So, what did today's beauty pageant event tell us?

Generally, it was just more of the same. Basically the three tried to outdo each other on who was closest to God. Once again, we heard a lot about how the Holy Spirit has guided their lives. I think we got that on the first night. Warner seemed to get a bit beyond himself in talking about how he felt called to be a bishop and would accept the offer if made. To me it came across as a little too presumptuous. 

Once again, the questions were mostly innocuous soft balls that anyone could answer. They all did answer them in pleasant, if meaningless, ways. Not really helpful. 

There were, however, two questions that I found to be strangely curious and perhaps revelatory. One was how the church should engage the wider culture. I was not clear exactly what that question meant. It could have meant various things. In the context where the ADSC is now, I took it to mean how should the diocese react to racism, equal rights for women, and rights and inclusion of non-celibate gays. Those are major elements in the culture war these days. Since the ADSC was set up in 2012 to keep non-celibate homosexuals from equal rights and inclusion in the  church and to keep women submissive to men, the ADSC has in fact made its interface with the secular culture crystal clear. So, the question really was, How do we rationalize and justify the diocesan opposition to these cultural changes? The answer pulled up the full Pharisee position. I understood Edgar to say what "the church" (his church) believes is true whether anyone agrees with it or not. If outside culture disagrees with the church it is wrong and the church will prevail so the church should be patient and wait for the corrupt culture to fall and pick up the pieces. The problem is in defining what the church believes. Edgar rejected the Episcopal Church's definition of rightful reform and put his own view in its place. Sturdy and Warner were not quite so pharisaic, but Sturdy took the absurd position that in 2003 (Robinson), the Episcopal Church fell into the secular political left-wing trap while the breakaway "Anglicans" were not, and are not, political. If he really believes ADSC, the ACNA, and GAFCON are non-political, he knows nothing of the schismatic movement.

The only other question of interest was the one asking what parts of the faith you are willing to die for or be removed as bishop. Again, I was not clear on what this mean, or what the implication was, but, again, in the context of the schism in SC, I took it to mean how far are you willing to go to resist the Episcopal Church. Edgar and Sturdy went back to their statements in the question above. Edgar said, in other words, his hill to die on was came in 2003 (when the Episcopal Church affirmed a partnered gay man as a bishop). The church was wrong; he was right; he left the Church. Sturdy repeated that "the secular polarized culture" had not "invaded" this (meaning ADSC) group. Disingenuous. [Memo to Rob Sturdy--read my history of the schism.]

Thus, this third night was the one in which two of the candidates edged up to the crucial issue of the hour, the schism. Both talked around it but neither fully engaged it. Warner seemed reluctant even to reach the outer edge. 

I sensed today a bit of weariness and fatigue setting in among the three candidates. They seemed a bit tired. They were not as spirited or energetic as the first two nights, and who could blame them? They are performing on stage for hours and know that one little slip could be fatal. I felt they spent a bit longer looking for just the right things to say although they have probably said everything they want to say.

Yet again, for the third day, I was amazed at how little interest the public has in these Walkabouts. Tonight the number of viewers got a bit higher, up to 90 at one point but dwindled away. Toward the end, I was one of 16 continuing to watch. Mercifully, the managers kept the show to two hours. 

I expect to watch the fourth, and last, stop on this beauty pageant road show tomorrow. I am developing some theories of what is happening here and I will share them with you after the last performance. 

 

CIVIL WAR BREWING IN GAFCON

ON ISSUE OF WOMEN BISHOPS?

GAFCON (Global Anglican Futures Conference) started in 2008 as a coalition of anti-homosexual rights bishops in the Anglican world. This was primarily in reaction to the embrace of equality for and inclusion of non-celibate homosexuals by the Canadian and American branches of the Anglican Communion. While primarily focused on gays, GAFCON also held a very low esteem for women in the clergy but they did not go for the same sweeping ban on this issue. 

When GAFCON and its American allies formed the Anglican Church in North America in 2009, they explicitly banned women from the episcopate. Local dioceses may choose to ordain women to the diaconate and priesthood, but none would be allowed to have women bishops. This hybrid compromise was written into the ACNA Constitution and Canons. Whether local dioceses would be allowed to ordain women at all remained a divisive issue within the ACNA. In 2017, the ACNA bishops issued a statement on this denouncing the ordination of women to the priesthood by "insufficient scriptural warrant." However, they concluded that although women's ordination was non-biblical, the local dioceses would continue to have the option of ordaining women as deacons and priests. The bishop of Ft. Worth loudly  proclaimed impaired communion with dioceses in ACNA ordaining women, e.g. South Carolina.

While there was no question about blanket ban on gays in the GAFCON sphere, there was considerable disagreement on women in the clergy. In fact, there are now four women bishops in Africa: two in Kenya, one in South Sudan,, and one in Southern Africa. Only a few days ago, Rose Okeno was ordained and consecrated the IV bishop of Butere, by the primate of Kenya, Jackson Ole Sapit.

The misogynists in GAFCON (and ACNA is part of GAFCON) appear ready to take up arms to stop allowing women to be bishops. In 2018, the primates' council of GAFCON issued a statement calling for a moratorium on consecrating women as bishops. Obviously, some in GAFCON have ignored this, certainly to the displeasure of the primates' council.

Now, a collection of reactionary clergy and laity in America has issued a letter calling for a ban on women bishops in GAFCON. Find it here . 

The leadership of GAFCON is going to have to come to terms on the ordination of women bishops. It appears that the issue is being settled de facto anyway. There are women bishops in GAFCON an they are not going to be dethroned. So much for the moratorium.

In the ACNA there will not be a woman bishop. It is a nearly all-white patriarchy. This means that the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina will never have a woman bishop. This is one reason why there is so little interest among the public now for the three candidates to succeed Mark Lawrence. In the recent election in the Episcopal Diocese of SC, there were two outstanding women candidates. This generated an enormous amount of interest and participation in those Walkabouts and election. We see little of that interest now in the next bishop of ADSC.

The ADSC has a lukewarm attitude toward women in the clergy. There is a handful of woman deacons and priests but none has ever been given authority over a medium or large parish. Women have never been the majority on any significant committee of the ADSC. No woman has ever chaired a major committee of the ADSC. It is clear that women are relegated to second-class status in the ADSC and will stay there. I only wonder why self-respecting women accept this out-dated misogyny.

GAFCON is a house of cards in the Anglican world. It was created to keep homosexuals out of the church. The rest of it was not so clear. If it begins to unravel on the issue of women bishops, the cards could begin to tumble and GAFCON itself could collapse in the face of the rising tide of human rights in the world.  

BEAUTY CONTEST, ROUND TWO

Once again, I watched the whole session of the beauty pageant called the Walkabouts, all two hours and forty minutes of it today. Whew.

By and large it was the same as the first night. The three candidates vied with each other in who had the closest relationship with God. It was all vertical religion, all the time. There was not a hint of the social gospel, not a bit of concern about making the world we live in a better place. This reflects the essence of the narrow religion in the breakaway contingent going under the name of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina.

The three contestants did seem a bit more relaxed and comfortable. Each seemed less nervous; and there was much less repetition of what the others said. The intros were generally the same except for Edgar who changed from talking about how much he had grown the Church of the Apostles in Columbia to how much his life was led by God.

The questions continued to be soft ball lobs and the answers were all pleasing generalities. Thank goodness the questions themselves were different than those of the first night. The best questions of tonight came from the audience (I think they should just let the audience ask the questions), and the very best of these was to describe one's understanding of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Finally, some meat on the bone. All the answers to that question were substantial. Then there was a question about being humble, another good one. It struck me that two of the three candidates have quite large egos (I will not say which) and could use some humility (but then, could not we all?). There was another question about making disciples in the diocese. I took that to mean how to grow membership. Important point. The ADSC has had a huge and relentless drop in communicant numbers since the schism, at least count down below 12,000 (from 27,000 in the pre-schism diocese). Unfortunately, no one had a good suggestion on how to grow membership.

Once again, I was struck at the lack of public interest in this Walkabout. At most only 67 people were watching the livestream. Bear in mind the diocese claims over 20,000 baptized members (a huge exaggeration). So, no more than several dozen people cared enough about their next bishop to tune in? And, as yesterday, I have no idea why there is so little interest in the choice of the new bishop. 

Speaking for myself and no one else, I see one candidate emerging as the most impressive but I will not say now which.

The beauty pageant moves tomorrow to Charleston. If I am up to it, I will try to watch again, but I am not promising. 

LITTLE INTEREST, AND LITTLE INTERESTING, IN FIRST WALKABOUT OF ADSC

Well, I made it through the whole two plus hours of the first Walkabout of the candidates for bishop coadjutor of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. Yawn. Apparently, I was one of few people who actually sat through it all. At most, in the middle, there were 59 people watching online. They dwindled away. There were only two comments in the chat room. By contrast, there were some 250 people who watched each of the walkabouts, last Sunday and Monday, in the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina. Thus four to five times as many people watched the walkabouts in the EDUSC as watched the ADSC show today.

Why the lack of interest in the next bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina? I do not know the answer to that. Is it because people just do not care? Is it because people know it is a foregone conclusion? Is it because people do not like any of the three candidates? I wonder.

The walkabout today shed little light on the subject. The questions were all super soft balls. The three sat together and most echoed each other. Rob Sturdy had an irritating habit of grinning at the wrong times and played with his cell phone the whole time (I do not blame him). Sturdy also ignored the federal court injunction against the ADSC twice. Once he said "our diocese" divided in 1865 along racial lines. Another time he referred to "the Diocese of South Carolina" in reference to Camp St. Christopher. According to the federal court, the ADSC did not exist before 2012 and is forbidden from calling itself the historic diocese or "the Diocese of South Carolina." Sturdy might want to study the federal court ruling. Sturdy was also the only one who referred to the church reaching out to young people, a good point. However, a church, as the Anglican Church in North America, that is based on misogyny and homophobia has no future among young people who are almost universally in favor of equality and inclusion for all people. 

All of the responses to the questions were all about vertical religion so the three vied with each other on their close relationships with God, particularly the Holy Spirit. There was virtually no word about making the world around us a better place. It was all about the power of God.

Of course, the 800 pound gorilla in the room was the schism and the lawsuits. None of the questions even hinted at this. Only one candidate (Edgar) even briefly alluded to it as he commented that the ADSC might "lose" Camp St. Christopher. As we know, the state supreme court recognized the Episcopal diocese as the owner of the Camp. Dickson reverse that but his order is on appeal now.

Let's hope we hear some new questions in future. Tomorrow is in Florence. Better yet, how about something of importance or controversy? This road show will be excruciatingly boring, uninteresting, and un-enlightening if it is just repeated day after day, three more to come. 

RIP - RT. REV. JOHN SHELBY SPONG

Bishop Spong died yesterday, at the age of 90. No one did more to champion the rights and inclusion of all people in the life of the Episcopal Church. He was the towering giant in the modern history of the Church implementing the horizontal nature of religion, particularly for human rights. In church history he will be remembered mostly for this. However, Spong was much more than a great reformer, he was an innovating thinker perhaps ahead of this time. He made us reconsider the basics of religion, to move them from the pre-modern world into the post-modern world. One of his mentors happened to be the one who, more than anyone, drew me from my childhood fundamentalism into the Episcopal Church. Bishop J.A.T. Robinson challenged us to see religion anew in his landmark work,  Honest to God. At the age of 21, it changed my life forever. It did Spong's too.

Indirectly, Spong had much to do with the schism in South Carolina. In the 1990's, he was the appointed bête noire of the conservatives in the diocese, led by ardent evangelical Bishop Fitz Allison who longed to be the antidote to Spong but was mostly ignored outside the diocese. The reactionaries in the diocese used Spong, whom they saw as a heretic, as the reason why the diocese should oppose the prevailing tide of the national church. He was a useful tool. However, in the end, it was Spong who prevailed and the conservatives who drove the grand old diocese into schismatic ruin. Thank God he lived long enough to see full and complete equality and inclusion of all people in the life of the church.

For more on Spong, see this article in ENS.

NOTES,  ON 9-11 (2021)

Twenty years. Can you believe it has been that long? For everyone alive then, the memory of that horrific day is seared in mind forever. It was one of those times when everyone remembers precisely where he or she was when they heard the news of the planes hitting the World Trade Center in Manhattan. I was a librarian in the South Carolina Room of the Charleston County Library. The magnitude of the moment was almost too much to bear. The shock has not gone away, but has eased over time. 

Let us solemnly remember now all the people who were lost on that terrible day and all the brave first responders who risked their own lives, some losing them, to help their fellow human beings in peril. It was a day of the worst and the best of humanity. As we grieve, I suggest that we all think how our lives have changed in those twenty years. How do you see yourself now as compared to twenty years ago?

September 11 also happens to be another anniversary here. It was on that day in 2013 that I started this modest blog. In that time I have made 900 postings, mostly on the schism in South Carolina, but also on other topics that I thought were important or interesting. Reader, you and I have been through a lot in these eight years. The important thing is that we were together even if electronically. We are all connected. I will keep doing this blog as long as people find it worthwhile. So far, hundreds of people a day click on to see what I have to say (nearly a million hits in the eight years). For me, this blog is a substitute for the classroom that I had for many years but no longer have. I have benefited greatly from an opportunity to address issues, organize my thoughts, and express them in the best ways I know how. I have been the big beneficiary of this project.

There is a lot of bad news around these days. Since we are already dealing with the heaviness of the 9-11 anniversary, let us not dwell on more negatives today. The sorrows of the day are enough now. So, let's turn to the signs or life and hope all around us.

All three dioceses important to us are moving boldly into the future with new leadership. This is a moment to celebrate. 

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is about to consecrate its first diocesan bishop since December 5, 2012. It was on that day that the presiding bishop released and removed Mark Lawrence as the bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. Since then there have been two part-time provisional bishops and one visiting bishop. On October 2, 2021, at 11:00 a.m., Ruth Woodliff-Stanley will be ordained and consecrated the XV bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, in Grace Church Cathedral, in Charleston. The leading officer will be Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, a long and dear friend of the diocese. This will be a major landmark in the history of the diocese and I doubt there will be many dry eyes before the day is out. The service will be livestreamed.

The contingent that broke away from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina and formed a new church, called the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, are also moving forward on choosing a new bishop. This will be the second bishop of the ADSC, to follow Mark Lawrence when he retires. There are three candidates, two internal and one external. The external is the dean of the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas, of which Steve Wood, of Mt. Pleasant, is the bishop. If he is elected, this could signal the merging of the ADSC and the Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas, both in the Anglican Church in North America. They are overlapping jurisdictions, mainly in the lowcountry. If the ADSC loses in the state supreme court, a significant possibility, it would be left with just six parishes, scarcely a viable entity. It would make sense for this remnant to unite with Wood's diocese.

The walkabouts of the three candidates will be on September 13, 14, 15, and 16. They will be livestreamed, starting by 6:00 p.m. on each day. Find more info on this here  .

The Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina is also searching for a new bishop. The walkabouts of the five nominees will be today, 11 September, and tomorrow, 12 September. These will be livestreamed beginning at 2:00 p.m. The election will be on 25 September, at Trinity Cathedral, in Columbia, also livestreamed.

Through all these years, one force that has kept me grounded (more or less) has been my garden. There I see the rhythms of nature repeated over and over, year in and year out. Whatever else is going on the world, through all the good news and bad, God's magnificent creation goes on. If nothing else, it reminds me always that I am part of a much larger scheme that operates on a much larger scale by a much larger power. I know that whatever happens, life will go on. And so, I revel in the beauty of nature as I lovingly tend the hundreds of plants I have chosen. As with this blog, I have been the big beneficiary in this. I am the one whose life has been enriched without bound.

And so, as we grieve today, I leave with a few new images of the beauty and wonder of God's gifts to us.

Coral Drift Rose. If you have a sunny spot that needs bright and beautiful color from frost to frost, try this. It is a small shrub rose, to about two feet, that blooms prolifically and requires little to no maintenance. Best planted in a mass.

This tree has become a popular small to medium tree in my area. It is Koelreuteria bipinnata, aka Chinese Flame Tree, Bougainvilla Tree. In summer, it puts out yellow flowers that turn into dark pink capsules. This specimen in my garden is too crowded. If it had more room of its own, it would be covered with a canopy of color.

I am a great fan of ornamental grasses. In the south, we have the ubiquitous and glorious Pampas Grass (Cortaderia selloana). It shoots forth these magnificent white plumes in late summer/fall. Actually, I do not recommend Pampas Grass for the typical home yard/garden because it grows large (10') and is difficult to maintain. Its sharp-edged leaves have to be trimmed down to about a foot in the winter to keep it from becoming overgrown (not my favorite job). There are many smaller and better managed ornamental grasses available even though their plumes may not match the grandeur of those of Pampas Grass. 

Abelia is one of the best families of shrubs for the home garden. I have many varieties. This is 'Rose Creek.' In summer it is covered in countless white flower clusters that gradually turn dark red in late summer.

Since my garden is rather large, it has become home to a variety of four-legged critters. The best of them is a neighborhood cat who has claimed the territory and stalks it by the hour. I wondered why the rabbits and chipmunks had disappeared. I have nicknamed the cat "Guardenia." I am delighted to have been adopted by this beautiful hunter. Here it is lounging on my back deck:

 

Today we remember the catastrophe of twenty years ago, and we should. We are also enduring layers of adversities, as COVID-19. These are stressful times; and if you are struggling to make it through under the heavy weight of it all, you are not alone. As always, we should remember we did not ask for any of these hardships. They were given to us for the living of our time. Although it may be hard to see, there is an order to the universe. As the seasons, we must go on to the best of our abilities. Peace. 

P.S. Florida State University is playing Jacksonville State University in football tonight. I'll be rooting for both the Seminoles and the Gamecocks.

REVIEWING THE SCHISMS 

AND THE COURTS

On February 26, 2021, I posted a piece entitled "A Status Report on the Schisms and the Courts." As we await word from the South Carolina Supreme Court, it is appropriate to revisit the legal histories of the five schisms in the Episcopal Church. I am repeating that blog piece below.

One point that brings this back is a recent article in "Juicy Ecumenicism" holding that the Episcopal Church has spent $52 million on the lawsuits coming out of the five schisms. The five schisms were from 2007 to 2012: San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Fort Worth, and South Carolina. 

In the first place, anything in "Juicy Ecumenicism" should be regarded with suspicion. It is a publication of The Institute on Religion and Democracy. Find an article about IRD here . The IRD was founded in 1981 as a right-wing PAC. It soon began to target the mainline Protestant denominations which it viewed as dangerously liberal, particularly for their stands for rights and inclusion of homosexuals and women in the life of the church. In 1996, the president of IRD set up the American Anglican Council specifically aimed at destroying or severely diminishing the Episcopal Church in order to end its "liberal" influence in American society, i.e. equal rights for gays and women. IRD and ACC were not grassroots organizations. They were funded from the deep pockets of various right-wing sources. Thus "Juicy Ecumenicism" should be taken with a grain of salt. It has an agenda.

Anyway, the article said that the Episcopal Church had spent $52 million dollars on the lawsuits arising from the five schisms. It did not venture to say how much the schismatic groups had spent on their legal costs.

Specific figures are impossible to find. The Episcopal Church budget is most forthcoming. However, no diocese has revealed details of all of their legal expenses. We do not know how much has been spent on the litigation.

No doubt, South Carolina has been the most expensive of the legal cases. There, the breakaway organization sued the Episcopal Church for possession of the pre-schism diocese. At the same time, it also became the only one of the five cases in which the local parishes joined individually in the suit. Thus, the people in the secessionist group were faced with two legal expenses, diocesan and parochial. Both the diocese and the parish hired lawyers and took legal actions. Lately, the breakaway diocese admitted spending half a million dollars a year on legal costs. I expect we can double that counting in the individual parishes. If so, the breakaways have spent a million dollars a year on the legal quest against the Episcopal Church. Eight years would equal $8 million. If we say the Episcopal Church side matched the breakaway diocese, we would add $4m. This would mean the two sides in SC have spent $12 million on the lawsuits. I expect that is a fair ballpark figure.

Of course, this vast expenditure did not have to be. In the first place, the reactionary contingent did not have to leave the Episcopal Church. In the second place, the breakaway group refused a compromise settlement in June of 2015. At the time, the Episcopal Church offered to give the breakaways the local parishes in return for the legal rights of the old diocese. The breakaway side flatly refused. I wonder how much money the breakaways have spent since June of 2015 only to see both the state supreme court and the federal court rule in favor of the Episcopal Church.

September is here. That means the South Carolina Supreme Court will be returning to its full schedule of work after its summer lull. Sooner or later, and no one can know which, the SCSC justices will have to rule on the Church's appeal of Judge Dickson's order that handed over all to the breakaways in direct violation of the 2017 SCSC decision. This is where we are now: waiting.

Here is my blog posting of Feb. 26, 2021 concerning the status of the lawsuits:   

A STATUS REPORT ON THE SCHISMS

AND THE COURTS

The settlement of the Fort Worth cases provides a convenient moment to summarize the litigation of the five schisms in the Episcopal Church. From 2007 to 2012, the majorities of the clergy and laity of five dioceses of the Episcopal Church left the Church in opposition to its recent social reforms, particularly equality for and inclusion of open, partnered gay clergy, and equality for and inclusion of women in offices of authority. The affirmation of Bishop Robinson and the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop were specific examples of the reforms that the dissidents refused to accept.

All five schisms went into litigation. Four of them have been settled in court. Only one, South Carolina, is still to be resolved finally. The legal issues boiled down to two main points: whether the local secessionists could take the entity of the diocese with them, and whether the schismatics could retain legal possession of the local church properties. The Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church contained provisions that pertained to both of these issues. Just how strong they were in the view of the law was the question at hand. This was what the courts had to figure out. TEC had incorporated the Dennis Canon in 1979. It declared that all local church properties were held in trust for the Episcopal Church and its local diocese and that if a congregation left TEC the trust would effectuate transfer of the property to the Episcopal Church. So, even if a parish held the deed to the property, TEC had trust control over the property.

Since four of the schisms have been settled in court, what is the score card? Who won? Well,  the answer is a draw. Two cases went to the Episcopal Church and two went to the local secessionists. 

The two that went to the Episcopal Church were Pittsburgh and San Joaquin. However, these were resolved for different reasons. Pittsburgh was a unique case owing to a "Stipulation" that Bishop Duncan made before the schism, in 2005, recognizing that the property held and administered by the diocese would remain under the diocese. In 2010, the judge in the Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County, following the Stipulation, ordered the breakaway side to turn over all assets to the Episcopal Church diocese. The state appeals court upheld the lower court. The Pennsylvania supreme court refused to take the case.

The case of San Joaquin followed a more conventional path of litigation in the courts. The two sides went to trial in 2014 in the Superior Court, Fresno County. The judge rendered a decision that turned out to be the strongest defense of the Episcopal Church position in any of the five schisms. He declared that the C and C of TEC clearly required conformity of clergy and dioceses. Clergy had no right to act contrary to the C and C and dioceses could not leave the church. He ordered the property to be handed over to the Episcopal Church diocese. The appeals court unanimously affirmed the lower court. The breakaways then went to the California supreme court but that court refused to take the case laving the lower court decision as final.

The two that went against the Episcopal Church were Quincy and Fort Worth. The reasonings of the courts there were similar but not exactly the same. In Quincy, the opinion of the court was the exact opposite of the California courts. Following a trial (Alan Runyan was one of the lawyers for the breakaways), the circuit court judge in Adams County, Illinois, ruled that TEC's C and C did not explicitly create a hierarchy, did not have authority over the dioceses, did not prevent a diocese from leaving the Church, and did not create an enforceable trust in the Dennis Canon. The court followed a very narrow and strict interpretation of state law. In short, the judge recognized the full rights and ownership of the secessionist entity. The appeals court affirmed the lower court. The TEC side went to the Illinois supreme court but that court refused to take the case leaving the circuit court decision as final. This was a sweeping victory for the schismatics.

Ironically, of all five schisms, the one where the Episcopal Church had the strongest position was the one where the Church suffered its strongest defeat. Fort Worth should have been an open and shut case in favor of TEC. It did not turn out that way. Why? The peculiar situation of the Texas courts and the peculiar laws of Texas allowed the secessionists to sweep the field.

The Diocese of Fort Worth had been created in 1983 by division. To enter TEC it had to give explicit accession to TEC's C and C. The Dennis Canon had been added to the C and C four years earlier. This meant at its corporate creation, the diocese explicitly adhered to all the C and C of TEC, including the Dennis Canon. This might have given iron-clad power of TEC over the diocese of Ft. Worth.

The history of the litigation in Texas is as peculiar as the final settlement. It started out in the local court, the 141st District Court. There, the judge ruled all in favor of the Episcopal Church on the basis that the Church was hierarchical. He ordered the turn over of all of the assets and properties of the old diocese to the Church side. The breakaway side then appealed directly to the Texas supreme court. That court ruled that the secessionists had followed state law to withdraw from TEC. Moreover, the court declared that the Dennis Canon could not be enforced because under Texas law a trust could be revoked unless the trust has an explicit provision that it could not be revoked. The Dennis Canon had no such provision, never mind that the nature of a trust should be inherent legally. The state supreme court sent the case back to the lower court with direction to find in favor of the breakways. The district court judge did as he was told but included in his order a virtual demand for appeal.

The TEC side did appeal the district court order to the appeals court. The appeals court justices took two years to compose a masterpiece of jurisprudence. Find my commentary on this here . Find the appeals court decision here . The appeals court decision is a 178-page book carefully and thoroughly spelling out the reasons for its conclusions. In essence, the court ruled that the Episcopal Church is hierarchical and therefore entitled to decide the governance of the diocese. Thus, the Church-backed diocese must prevail. The justices went on to say that the Dennis Canon did not impose a trust since state law required the deed holder to set up a trust and this had not happened. However, the Dennis Canon was irrelevant in view of the fact that the diocese remained under Episcopal Church authority. The properties remained under control of the Episcopal Church regardless of the state law on trusts.

Thus, the Episcopal Church won sweeping victories in district and appeals court, even after the state supreme court had intervened to order the district court to reverse itself. The Texas supreme court was not to be pushed aside, however. The secessionists appealed directly to the state high court which issued a thin, 30-page decision on May 22, 2020. Find my commentary on this here . Find the court's decision here . It was this decision that TEC took to the U.S. Supreme Court which denied cert on Feb. 22, 2021. The TX supreme court decision now stands as the final law of the case.

As opposed to the hefty, thorough tome from the appeals court, the thin, 30 page paper from the Texas Supreme Court was anemic with virtually no substantiating jurisprudence to support its assertions. The decision turned out to be a bundle of contradictions but revolved around the essential charge the justices made the first time, that is, the Dennis Canon could not be enforced because it did not include an explicit provision that it could not be revoked. This, of course, was a thin reed, but it was the one the court ultimately clung to in order to justify their awarding all to the breakaways. In spite of the weakness of their explanation, the authority of the state supreme court prevailed and that decision took precedence over the substantial jurisprudence of the lower courts. 

Thus, Fort Worth, where the Episcopal Church had the strongest case, turned out to be the one where the secessionists won their most sweeping victory. This was because one court, the state supreme court, overruled all of the decisions of the lower courts, and did so on a technicality. One should bear in mind that Texas is one of those states where all justices of the state supreme court are elected at large in the state. Hence, conservative Republicans have had a monopoly on the Texas Supreme Court for two decades. That court is known to be a bastion of conservatism. They certainly showed their attitudes in this case.

With the score of 2 to 2, we arrive at the fifth case, the only one yet to be finally settled, South Carolina. In some ways, the case is similar to the Texas experience, but in more important ways it is upside down. In SC, the local court ruled entirely for the breakaways, giving them the entity of the diocese and the local properties. The TEC side appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court that essentially reversed the lower court, and recognized Episcopal Church ownership of 29 of the 36 local properties in question plus Camp St. Christopher. The SCSC then remitted its decision back to the lower court for implementation. In this case, as opposed to what happened in Texas, the lower judge refused the order from the SCSC. Instead, he issued a new order reversing the SCSC decision. In Texas, the lower judge had carried out the state supreme court order; and it was this decision that was overturned by the appeals court. So, in SC the lower courts sided completely with the breakaways while the state supreme court favored the Church side, opposite what happened in Texas. The Church side appealed the lower court order to the SC Supreme Court asking the court to overrule the lower judge and enforce the SCSC decision of 2017. This is where the matter stands today.

As with Texas, the heart of the matter in SC is the ownership of the properties. The SCSC ruled that 29 parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon. The lower courts ruled that no parish had acceded to the Dennis Canon.

Meanwhile, SC was the only one of the five schisms that moved along two avenues of litigation, state and federal courts. In 2013, a few months after the schism, the Church side went to the federal district court for enforcement of the Lanham Act that protected federally registered trademarks. In essence, it asked the federal court to recognize the Church diocese as the legal heir of the pre-schism diocese. In 2019, the district court did just that. It said the Church diocese was the only legal and legitimate heir of the old diocese and forbade the breakaway side from pretending to be the Episcopal diocese. This decision is now on appeal with the federal appeals court in Richmond. However, the decision is in effect since both district and appeals court denied the breakways' request for a stay. (However, the case itself is on stay in the appeals court, pending a decision of the SCSC.)

No one knows, and no one should predict, what the SCSC will do about the appeal now before it. Common sense says they should defend the SCSC decision of 2017 and overrule the nullification attempt of the lower court. In my view, it will depend on whether the state high court justices interpret the case before them as one of jurisprudence or of the culture war. If strictly jurisprudence, they would have to defend the SCSC decision. If they allowed a lower court to overrule the state supreme court, they would upend the entire state judicial system which is a hierarchy. This would usher in nothing but chaos and never ending litigation in the state courts. This would be a mind-boggling outcome. If, on the other hand, they are driven mostly by the culture war, they may find a way to give the properties to the breakaway side although this would seriously weaken the authority of the SC Supreme Court by overthrowing an earlier decision. The point that might make one think they might go down this path is their repeated refusal to order the lower court to enforce the SCSC decision after they ordered a Remittitur.

Thus, SC remains the wild card in this long legal war. Now that both sides have submitted their initial briefs, the SCSC should be moving soon to a decision. The court may hold a hearing or they may go directly to a written decision. Either way, it is reasonable to hope for resolution in this calendar year. Who will be the winner, 3-2, the Episcopal Church or the schismatics? We shall see.

In sum, the litigation revolves around two main points, first, who owns the properties, and second, who owns the pre-schism diocese. The prevailing factor in these is whether the Episcopal Church is an hierarchical organization. The consensus of opinion is that it is indeed hierarchical. Even the Texas Supreme Court agreed. If it is an hierarchy, then neither the dioceses nor the clergy could be independent of the higher authority. The General Convention governs the Episcopal Church and its decisions are contained in the Constitution and Canons. The Dennis Canon is part and parcel of this.

To put all of this in a more meaningful perspective, we have to go back to the origins of the schisms. They were parts of the greater culture war going on in America. For better or for worse (better, I think) the Episcopal Church threw in its lot early on with the side of evolving democracy, that is, the equality and inclusion of all people. TEC became a champion of human rights. A minority of the Church, however, balked at this and insisted the church not grant equality and inclusion of certain people, namely women and homosexuals. Hence, the five schisms. 

The courts have been the only way we have to resolve the questions of legal rights and property ownership. However, the courts are not perfect and there is really no such thing as completely impartial justice. Judges are human beings, like the rest of us, who have viewpoints and opinions of their own. Even though they may try hard to be fair, they see the law through their own individual lenses. And so, we have polar opposite outcomes in courts across America, 2 for the Church and 2 for the secessionists. Imperfect as they are, the courts are all we have to bring the scandalous war between the two sets of former friends to an end. The justices of the SCSC are subject to the same humanity as the rest of us. One side will win and one side will lose in SC. Whatever the outcome, this destructive madness of Christians suing Christians must come to an end. We must live with what we get. Above all, in the end, we must behave as the Christians we claim to be or else we have no right to the name we bear.